One Fictional Opioid Overdose in Eighteenth-century England and One Attempted Opioid Overdose in Nineteenth-century America.

In today's epidemic of opioid misuse, overdoses are not infrequent and can end in death. A fatal overdose is the culmination of a series of events that can be difficult to understand. Overdoses are not new, as is illustrated by two case reports from the past of overdoses on laudanum, a mixture of alcohol and opium. One was fictional and one was attempted, but they show how even 200 to 300 years ago people overdosed on opioids (or what they thought were opioids) when they found themselves in unbearable situations.